Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.
Marlowe, Faustus
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.
The warmth of the woollen slippers streamed up my ankles.
I paced to and fro in my room. I love this room!
I went to the window and pushed the shutters.
Behind the tall silvery cypresses, the sun was slowly lowering itself into the river.
There were gaps in the row of those majestic, peaceful trees, and I could see the sun as it subsided. At first, the luminary was calm and dignified, even asleep in its gilded outflow.
Then, like a man who suddenly awakes and finds himself drowning,
alone, in deep water, and begins to flap his frantic hands,
as if preparing to take off into the indifferent sky,
the sun began to toss about in the river
with ever increasing agitation,
its amber fingers clutching the implacable boulders scattered on the bank.
Orange light poured into my room,
wave after wave,
swelling in irregular surges,
erasing all other colours,
making everything flare up, hush, and flare up again.
I looked around with profound satisfaction.
Leather-bound voices sat on the shelves. Two statuettes, male and female, wearing wreaths of corn and blooming brier, seemed to soak up the arriving resplendence and then glow on their own until the new wave came. There was also a rhinoceros hewn out of orange stone. A clump of sunlight, impaled on the animal's horn, trickled down its face.
I wouldn't call my room spacious, and yet the light seemed to inflate it, push its walls further out, making all other colours invisible, all shapes indistinct.
An armchair stood by the window. There used to be a second armchair, but I had it removed. I don't entertain. My life is lonely. I don't mind it. I have all I need here.
A stack of orange paper gleamed on the birch table. My gold-nibbed Moore, all creamy and glowing, was a joy to see. So much light, and yet the gorgeous resin hasn't faded a bit! An orange pocket Tissot ticked away on the orange handkerchief. I like unobtrusive ticking, the kind one has to listen to. This is why there are no clocks in my room or in the whole apartment,
as far as I remember.
Despite the open window, there was no movement in the air,
and it was strange, for the light was coming on very violently.
I did feel a cool, tender breeze tickling the back of my head, and I was pleased with it.
I kept pacing the room. This is what I love to do, when I don't sit in my armchair.
I love my room, and I love the shuffling of my slippers, I love the velvety armrests, and that sunset. If only I could inhale this light, fill my lungs with it! I imagined my body glowing inside and almost laughed with joy!
I had already reached the far wall and was preparing to go back to the window,
anticipating my favourite moment of turning and facing the quiet orange breaker,
that would re-gild my face, and push it aside, like a curtain,
and fill my heart brim-high with its silent gold,
when I halted and my right leg froze above the floor.
There was someone in my room. A man.
I couldn't see him well, for the light was shining in my eyes.
I was reluctant to move or speak. The black silhouette stood by the window.
Orange light raged around him, but he was enveloped in a livid aureole, where the light retreated.
I am sorry to startle you. The door was open. I came in.
His voice was very faint. He sounded sick.
I shuffled in a semicircle, not taking my eyes off him. I hadn't seen anyone for quite a while, it was all so sudden. I blamed myself bitterly for leaving the door open.
Soon I could see the man better and calmed down a bit. He did not appear dangerous. He even tried to smile, with a little smile that seemed lost among his wrinkles. I saw that he was very tired. He closed his eyes.
He wore an inconspicuous grey suit, the kind one sees in discount stores. It had been a while since I saw any other colour except that of the sunset, and that grey struck me. I stared at it.
Now and again, the man touched the unbuttoned collar of his shirt. He must have been used to wearing a tie. His shirt was not clean. There was a ribbon of dirt inside the collar. I felt revulsion. I hate uncleanliness. I noticed that his suit was patched with dirt. And his shoes, too, were covered with dirt. Alarmed, I glanced at my carpet. Thank god, the carpet was clean. My beautiful orange carpet, unsoiled by this intruder.
What do you want, I asked with half-concealed irritation.
He looked at me very attentively, as if examining my face, as if not knowing what to say, and then:
I didn't want to intrude, but I have nowhere else to go.
I am lost.
Soft ringing of another voice pushed through the hoarseness of his.
I thought of the faint bell of a lost calf, in a field combed with moaning waves of the wind. Another flash of light came and drowned his last words. The Cycladic statuette on the bookshelf was so enveloped in light it seemed hovering in the air.
The man did not appear to enjoy my magnificent sunset. I need to get rid of him. I shouldn't be rude. He may still be dangerous. What can I do for you?
The man's lips again creaked in a coarse smile, as if someone cut willow bark with a knife. You know how some people, who are in terrible heartbreak, try to smile? What a wrong instinct! Their smile only deepens our distress and impatience.
Indeed, he was very sad. Grief stood in his eyes like a curtain suddenly dropped over a puppet theatre, so that Pierrot, with his frills of icy whiteness,
and Harlequin, with the worthless richness of his garish diamonds,
a stick raised above his head for a futile but resonant blow,
vanished from view – the poor vagabond show,
the flamboyant altercation of high-pitched voices,
wide-eyed girls in puffy ultramarine skirts
and clay angels rocking on hemp threads
all but destroyed by the heavy folds of sullied satin.
I liked that image and savoured it. I was not afraid any more.
And something else was in the man's eyes,
something sharp and intense.
With surprise, I peered into his face.
Yes, there was another emotion. A determination of some sort.
And pity. Yes, pity.
This discovery offended me.
I don't know what your story is, but, as you can see, I am a very busy man. I am watching the sunset, and then I intend to write. Tell me quickly what you want and be on your way.
I tried to make my voice sound as strict as possible.
Yes, of course. I need to tell you what happened.
I must admit I was somewhat curious, although I did not expect anything extraordinary.
A drunken brawl, a robbery, an eviction. Then he will ask for money. Wonderful. Beggars begin to invade homes. What next?
I work not far from here. There is a playground, near the locked-up cathedral. You must know it. A playground without children. I had a quiet hour there, every afternoon, when I could pull my head out of accounts and balance sheets.
A brisk walk, a sandwich in my hand,
my side vision catching the rapid succession
of muffled shops, automobiles, corners, churches, houses,
and then a long white pause, a wall encircling the playground,
like a flat line on a monitor, a heart that has stopped beating.
A child once brought home a human bone,
his parents went to the playground and discovered tombstones,
some broken and levelled, some turned into a fence for the two-horse carousel.
There was a scandal. Someone important was fired. I don't know the details.
The rusty gate needed only a slight push to open, shedding its cheap white paint.
Layers of pine needles crackled under my feet, as if I walked on invisible fire. The pines were very tall, clumpy on top, like dark fists raised in threat to the lazurite heights still ungained. The trees were few, but their rustling and hissing, echoed by the wall, resonated through the entire space.
One afternoon I saw wilted hawthorn petals on the ground.
At first, I didn't pay much attention to them.
A few days later, the hawthorn petals appeared again.
This time more of them, a handful,
clumped together and still fresh.
There was no hawthorn bush in the playground,
and I was intrigued. I went out of the gate and walked along the white wall, looking here and there. The wall was dilapidated, ugly on the outside,
covered with obscenities and graffiti.
Who could have imagined that its other side was pristine,
only smudged by garden slugs, their trails brownish on the edges, but still glistening in the diffused sunlight?
I can't say I was interested in the man's story, but he spoke eloquently. I couldn't have spoken better, and I am a great conversationalist. He can't be an ordinary beggar.
Would you like to sit in the armchair? I asked this to be polite, but I was terribly afraid he would plump himself down, dirt and all.
No, no, I will not sit. No, no.
I shrugged my shoulders and sat down.
When the man spoke of the white wall, I thought about my own face, which was beginning to show the handwriting of years, the tale of my ageing, told by a clumsy stylist. When he fills this side of my face, he will turn it like a sheet of paper, to write on the other side, which by now will only be slightly dirtied by the bleed-through. Another wonderful image. When the man leaves, I need to write it down, and the one of the vagabond theatre.
The man waited, as if he knew I was busy with important work.
I found no hawthorn bush,
the petals must have been brought from far away,
maybe, from other springs gone by.
He again smiled. I wished he didn't do it, for his smiles unsettled me.
It was autumn, and no hawthorn could be in bloom.
A small mystery, a diversion, something to think about as I trotted home, to my dull dinner and the album of Caravaggio.
I was pleased he mentioned Caravaggio.
I love this painter, and I have his album, although I haven't seen it for a while. Where could it be? I glanced around the room, searching for the album. The man waited. I couldn't find it, because I forgot what it looked like. I sighed.
A few days passed, and no fresh petals appeared. I was beginning to forget.
Then, on Wednesday, as I pushed the gate,
I saw that my bench was occupied. A woman was sitting there.
A dry leaf flew past my face and prickled it.
My haunt was discovered. I was upset.
The woman sat alone. She wore a dress of a pleasant orange colour. I don't like bright colours, but that one was soft and deep, and for a while I looked only at her dress. She sat on the bench, her head lowered slightly, her legs joined together.
The fringe of her long dress flapped in the wind. My attention became so concentrated I heard only the flapping. Everything else, the sporadic outcries of the crows, the pines rustling, the hiss of the impatient wind, everything else was weakened, subdued.
Thick smudges of sunlight surrounded the bench, crawled up its legs, lay on it, and on the woman's lap, on her shoulders and arms. Some were on her dress, too, and made the orange fabric glow with an almost garish, cruel beauty.
Her hair was black, but now, as it reflected the light, it shimmered like russet silk.
She had a small bunch of orange hawthorn flowers in her hands. She held it with both her hands, as if careful not to drop it.
Thinking what to do, to leave or to sit down, I began to walk towards her. With each step, the surrounding sounds became more and more muted, until only the flapping remained, as if a large bird was trapped in my head and beat its wings, trying to break free.
As I came closer, I could see the woman's face. It was elongated, with slightly protruding eyelids. Her nose had a defect, a slight bump, which made it seem crooked, but this was unobtrusive. She was ill dressed for the season. It was rather chilly, and her dress, light and sleeveless, could hardly warm her. She did not acknowledge my presence.
I stopped, pretending to examine the inscription on one of the broken tombstones. I could only see a Roman date and a few letters of a name, interrupted by bursts of bluish moss that looked like fireworks in the stone sky. I stood for a long time, and she sat on the bench, her eyes lowered to the ground.
Then a bird croaked.
I had to go back.
I thought about her all that day, and the next one, when I was unwell and had to remain at home. From the hawthorn petals I had seen, I knew she had been there at least once before yesterday. She didn't look happy. And the flowers... It dawned on me that she was visiting a grave that had been demolished. That would explain her unhappiness and disregard for the cold. I wanted to see her again.
A new, stronger surge of light entered the room and broke for a moment the dark cone around the man's face. It blazed up with an impetuous openness, all shades removed. With an orange chisel the light sculpted him, smoothed out his wrinkles. I observed the last remains of his bashfulness melt away,
exposing something solid underneath,
a rock uncovered more and more as dirty snow dissolves.
I felt unwell the next day, too, but not as much. I could have stayed at home, but didn't want to. I am not the type who chats up women in the street, but this one was different. I needed to speak to her, I felt I had to. I was bitter for being shy when I could have spoken. What if she is gone, and never comes back? The thought was not yet unbearable, but piercing and hurtful.
She had one of those faces that change depending on how one looks at them.
When I was in front of her, this face was elongated, enticing, sculpted with precision.
Her narrow nose, thin lips curved in sadness, pale and mute,
two quiet streams of dark hair, hardly touching her cheeks, her smooth, slightly protruding forehead and several long hairs winding on it, like cracks in overheated porcelain,
I could see them. I already owned them.
She was there, standing near the bench. I sighed, mad with relief.
She wore the same orange dress, and a bunch of hawthorn flowers was in her hands, like before. As if two days had not passed. And something else. Those surely were the same flowers. Most of them were quite wilted now. Many petals lay on the ground, at her feet. This was strange. She must have been in great distress, poor one.
Her naked arms and ankles
shimmered with subdued paleness,
like the remains of a white ship wrecked in a sea of light, rustle and wind.
I sat on the bench.
I couldn't see her eyes, which were averted.
She had a spot on the left side of her nose,
a tiny one, which made her face eloquent.
Her body had that classical delicateness about it,
which makes any description superfluous.
Once, in Athens, on a rainy Saturday,
I saw a statue of a Muse, seated in a lion-pawed chair,
her head gone, a flute in her hand,
blades of grass growing out of the sound holes,
like lamentations of ancient music condensed as green fibre,
the grace of sound replaced with the grace of line,
or line being the echo, the aftertaste of sound,
growing more solid as the sound moved away in time.
I had never seen such bodies. I still think
that sexual arousal is the means of compensating
for lack of connection.
Her stone and my flesh
were so complete that I was stilled,
my emotions intensified to such a degree
that I felt almost indifferent. There was no desire.
Such was her body, but from underneath,
when I looked at her face as I sat on the bench,
her face seemed plump, almost flat,
like a piece of canvas ripped open
by two narrow black nostrils
or a pie baked with two coins
for celebration of an ill-fated wedding,
left uneaten, the coins removed and hastily spent.
I still couldn't see her eyes,
and it bothered me. I decided to speak.
It is chilly here. Aren't you cold?
She did not answer, but, as soon as I spoke,
she lifted her eyes.
I was prepared to be amazed by their radiance,
but her eyes were bleak and swollen,
as if from much crying.
There are such eyes. All-inclusive, shiny and blank. Ready to reflect what your own eyes project into them. I was too distracted by my pounding heart, to think whether it was emptiness or extreme fullness.
I saw you here last time. These are lovely flowers.
I went on speaking with that feigned cheerfulness I always assume with strangers and which I hate.
The wind slapped me in the face, again and again,
and I had to button my suit, for the air became colder.
She seemed unaffected, her dress shifting like rampant fire,
her neck awkwardly turned.
I admire you. Not a goosebump.
I am absolutely freezing. The morning was warm, though.
Why do you keep these flowers? They are wilted. You need new ones.
When I was in the middle of another silly sentence,
her lips began to part. I paused.
There was a wheezing sound, a row of small teeth,
her lips trembled, as if struggling with a word that refused to be shaped.
This frail response was enough to stir up my body.
Hot blood burst through my cheeks and flooded my face.
There was rapid shivering in my belly.
I was like a plant coming alive.
I am unused to such intense emotions,
and soon I was exhausted. I couldn't keep pressing her into a conversation.
She didn't wish to speak, so be it.
I looked to the side. It was a windy day.
A dry maple leaf tumbled through the air and bounced off a granite slab,
but didn't fall to the ground. It jerked up, as if tied to a rapidly withdrawn sunray, and then ascended into the bluish crown of a pine tree. I turned my face back to the bench.
She was sitting beside me.
She sat down so quietly and quickly that I didn't hear her. The bench was small, and our hips almost touched.
I could hardly contain myself from putting my arm
around her waist.
A petal detached from one of her hawthorn flowers
and landed on the square tip of her orange shoe.
It balanced there, like a white boat rocked by crystalline waves.
Another push of air,
and the boat upturned and drowned
in the pungent, leaf-patched sea.
The man paused.
The light was undulating,
hushing and flaring, as if creeping towards us.
Would you like something to drink? I saw he was unnerved.
No. You mustn't drink anything here, either.
This was rude. I stared at him with astonishment.
Then there was the weekend. I did go to the playground, several times, but the gate was locked. It always is on weekends, to stop children from entering. I brought some work home, but loathed it. Papers were piled in front of me, on the table. I loathed that table. I went up to the window and pressed my nose against the dirty glass that carried older imprints of my nose, one upon another.
No, it was not sexual.
I was aroused, I wanted her,
but the arousal was in my chest. It was sad happiness.
I made all kinds of guesses. I knew nothing about her.
What if she doesn't come on Monday, or ever again? I felt she would come. She had smiled at me. If she brought those flowers for a grave, why did she keep holding them, and took them home, and brought them back? The grave must have been obliterated.
One should never bring home flowers meant for a grave. It is a very bad omen.
I will tell her this. If I see her. If I ever see her. What a damn idiot I am. Prattled for half an hour, and didn't even ask her name. Didn't even ask where she lived.
There was an old carousel in the yard. Horses again. It surprised me that I was never aware of those horses before. They must have been in the yard for ages. But when did I stand like this and look? I was always too busy. Two horses, bolted to the iron rods. One used to be red, but had faded to orange. I felt a pang in my chest. That dress, flapping in the teal blue shade like standing fire... The other horse was white and strangely clean as if no one had ridden it yet. Very loudly rustled the maple trees, and the carousel shifted, pushed by the wind. The orange horse was chasing the white one.
In my thoughts,
I opened that gate numerous times,
and entered, pine needles crackling under my feet,
only the fire was visible now, it was in front of me,
in its undetached detachment, flapping in the wind.
I would come and put my arm around her shoulder,
then around her waist, and ask her what troubled her so.
I didn't need her words, a glance would suffice,
a movement of lips. Her breasts, so erect
that I could see her nipples push the orange fabric
as if they were sharp stones, were maddening in their eloquence,
but I needed another language, one less cruelly beautiful.
Who could mark the exact time
when love enters our body, who could draw a line and say:
here you were not in love, but here you are?
You glow, you burn, but something capable of glowing and burning
had to be in you. Love had to be in you for you to love.
And so it happens that the line is really a circle
that seems to you straight, because you are unable to comprehend
its all-inclusive, all-pervasive roundness,
which is vastly greater than you, and embraces equally
your past and future, your loving and not loving,
as the straight horizon embraces what you can see and what you can't.
So, when love comes, it doesn't come.
It only confirms its endless existence within you,
its ceaseless trickling through, as your heart moves aside,
with each beat, to let one more drop glide in.
I would kneel in front of that bench,
and put my head in her lap, or press it between her breasts,
as once the knights did who had survived another massacre.
They knew, of course, that they clung to flesh and bone,
to sweat and hair, and I knew that, had she spoken,
had she explained who she was and why she was coming
to that playful graveyard,
I would have been less taken by her,
less unbearably obsessed.
She was too withdrawn, to constrain what was surging out of me.
So many times I came to that bench in my thoughts
and spoke to her, and was heard.
I tried to remember everything, the expression of her face,
her posture, the length of her arms and legs, the roundness of her hips,
which were very round indeed and pleasing to see.
Her dress was simple and thin, and I didn't see the strap of underwear
pushing that orange material from underneath,
this excited me, but she couldn't be naked
in such a place, in the biting wind.
I would recreate her face and body
the best I could, losing track of what I remembered
and what I imagined.
I was so confused I didn't know what roundness was,
what softness, or darkness – it all
flared like the sun suddenly hitting your eyes
as you turn around a corner or push the shutters.
I had to borrow her roundness from the roundness of the clouds
bulging through the sky's landscaped indifference,
and I had to borrow her softness from the softness
of my own cheeks, burning as I tried to soothe them
with my cold palms.
The darkness of her hair I had to claim
from the darkness of tomorrow, for I could not imagine it.
If she is not there, I don't know what will happen to me.
She must be there. She can't not be there.
My hands were shaking. I had a small supper and threw up.
I loved. I couldn't deceive myself any longer. I loved.
All my lonely and withdrawn life I longed for a meeting like this.
I never had a woman. I am ashamed to confess it, but it is so.
I felt something had linked us, during those two times when I saw her,
and this provoked a violent, hysterical response
from my soul, maddened by thirty years of longing.
A bell hung on the cornice will ring when touched,
a man or woman's hand, a bird's wing, wind, rain, a stone thrown at random –
the bell will ring. It came at last. The mystery, elegance, desire. This must be love.
This hit me hard. I crouched in my chair,
in front of the open Caravaggio. There she was, not dead, but asleep,
clad in a darker robe, her legs resting on John's knees,
the Apostles despondently standing around,
Mary Magdalene, her face buried in her lap, crying her heart out,
her dress was exactly the colour I needed, now I could visualise my love.
The red surge coming from above, as if held by the unseen fingers.
I shuddered and woke up. The fingers unclasped,
the orange wave, for I didn't perceive red any more,
descended majestically upon the figures, covered them
and spread like an evening sea, its gleaming spine stretched along the horizon,
parallel to the shore, as the sun descended.
It vanished, and came out, and now was burning my face. I overslept.
The confusion of yesterday was gone, the grieving figures
hidden, annihilated by the triumphant light.
She will be there. So much response in me would be impossible
without a call.
I was quiet all morning. I even did some work.
Our faces stood one opposite another,
hers trembling in the light, and mine calm, almost breathless.
Her trembling made my calmness possible, for it robbed me of my agitation.
I already lived outside myself. My pulse was already hers.
As noon drew closer,
my hands began to shake again, my throat stiffened.
I felt it was coming again. It really was unbearable.
I had to go there. Now, right now. She may be there already.
She may even be waiting for me. How do I know she isn't?
I rose. I ran.
My shoelace got untied, and I had to stop,
in order to weave a silken butterfly.
Something pushed my forehead with such force
I nearly sat on my buttocks in the dirt.
I rose and kept running.
The man paused. His face was now livid, slathered with dirty green shade.
The light raged around his face, but couldn't penetrate its murkiness.
Mine, on the contrary, was drowning in an almost ecstatic glow.
The light reached such intensity it was tactile. I could feel it stroke my face.
I blame myself. I was blinded. I didn't see.
My regrets come too late.
He was really pitiful now, his arms hanging along his hips.
I'll give you that drink, after all, I muttered, beginning to feel uneasy again.
No. I can't stay much longer.
I wanted a drink myself, for unrest was growing inside me. For the first time, I was not pleased to be in my room. I didn't see much sense in the man's story, but I was affected by it more strongly than I would have liked. Something terrible must have happened. A murder, perhaps. I have a murderer in my house! I looked at him again. Yes, he could do it. My God, am I in danger? I must be as polite as I possibly can, or he'll turn on me. I sank deeper in the armchair.
Near the gate I stopped to catch my breath. It didn't help. I was still panting.
The gate was open. I stepped in and impatiently glanced towards the bench.
It was empty. My heart jarred. I crept in and sat down, then pressed one of the wilted hawthorn petals with the tip of my shoe. Water filled it, and my tiny face popped up. At that very moment I heard sobbing. I turned my head so quickly my neck clicked.
She was there, further away. The white wall was smeared with huge stains of afternoon light, and she seemed one of those stains. She stood near a broken granite slab, her face dim, uncertain. She was crying. Her dress gleamed like polished copper.
I had come to her so many times in my thoughts
that the illusion became a habit, strong enough to replace reality.
Not thinking, a fool, a fool, I approached her. I was wavering like a drunkard.
I put my arms around her waist. She did not resist. I embraced her and whispered: Don't cry. Don't cry. I am here. I took a handkerchief out of my pocket, to wipe her tears. I put my palm under her chin and turned her face to mine. There were no tears in her eyes. She smiled. Her eyes stood in front of me, as if detached from her body. They were huge and shallow, as if hewn from dark jasper. The wind went on howling, and I couldn't concentrate. That noise was too loud. I looked up, towards the crowns of the tall pine trees, but they were still. No wind. The howling was coming from inside me, like many agitated voices speaking at once.
It did not last. The next moment all was hushed and the wind began to blow again.
I put her head on my shoulder and caressed her back, sliding my right hand up and down. My left hand was locked around her waist. I was not aroused any more. A sort of pensiveness descended upon me, and I looked to the ground. The granite slab near us was cracked and covered with soil. There had been a Latin inscription on it, of which two words remained, PROCUL and ESTE, and a smashed pentagram.
Something pricked my chest. Slightly I pushed her away, and the mushy, unpleasant smell of rotten flowers hit my nostrils. She still held the very same hawthorn bunch, now all black and shrivelled. Her hair seemed much longer than before. I couldn't breathe. Her breasts were perfectly round, with a very open cleavage. I kept looking at it. There was a black mole on one of her breasts, with little hairs sticking out.
In sudden revulsion, I looked and looked, and it was not a mole, but a dead ladybird, its belly black and shiny, its legs outstretched. With two fingers I tried to pick up the insect, but it was very slippery. My fingers kept missing it. I tried again and again, becoming more and more absorbed in that ridiculous task, until the ladybird fell somewhere between her breasts. I pushed my fingers there, and still couldn't touch the ladybird. I had to lean lower, but still couldn't find it. Lower and lower I leaned, lower and lower...
I saw he wanted to say something else, but couldn't. In all the time he was here he never moved his arms. They hang down, as if shackled.
Thank you for coming and telling me all this, I said.
You do need to rest. Go home now. Don't lose your grip on reality.
A crazy woman. You were attracted to her. It happens.
Don't go there again, now that you have left her.
As if in great pain, he said:
No, you never left her. You are in her grave.
My mouth opened and closed again. The man was sick. No doubt.
And yet, as his words sank deeper, I began to panic.
I looked around my room. The sunset continued to blaze,
and the spots of light were stuck to the glass of the bookcase
like clusters of orange butterflies, covering the titles of my books. I waved my hand, trying to scare the butterflies off and read the titles, but the butterflies were stiff and lifeless.
Look, look at this light, the man almost cried. His voice rang, tense and plaintive.
Don't you think this sunset lasts too long? What is your name? Who are you?
For the life of me, I couldn't remember. I couldn't think of a time when there was no sunset.
But... I liked it and never thought it would pass.
Look at this light, see it for what it is!
The man's voice rang clear, like a crystal bell tumbling from the top of tall stairs,
hitting each step in succession, at risk of cracking any moment.
In confusion, I looked at the light spreading across my chest and belly.
And indeed, a strange light it was, all twilled and thick.
I touched it, I rubbed it with my fingers.
It was orange fabric!
I was wrapped in it, my eyes nearly blindfolded.
I saw my bookcase, but I could no longer recognise it,
so long and narrow it was, almost pressing against me,
and those were no books, but joined planks of wood.
Instead of the Tissot watch, I saw a large beetle digging with its horn.
Instead of the Moore pen, I saw a black worm.
Look, look around! The man's voice hit another step, cracked and fell quiet.
I looked, and my heart stopped.
There was a woman's face behind me, her mouth open and breathing.
This was the evening breeze I liked so much!
She clenched her knees around my hips, so tight, so tight,
her fingers sunk into my wrists.
There was that awful rotten smell of slime and decay,
her naked legs were stiff, and her fingers, cold and parched,
momentarily slid off my eyes.
I jolted, trying to rise from the armchair,
which, I saw it now, was a heap of torn lace,
but she was stronger, far stronger than me.
Slices of dirt on my grey suit cracked and fell on my knees.
I wanted to cry, but there was a huge lump in my throat.
Somehow I did manage to get up,
but she hung on my back, almost fused into it.
The shuffling of slippers filled my ears,
like whisper, the endless, tiresome whisper of her dried lips,
lisping, lisping its incomprehensible words of love, or agonised contentment.
Slowly, unstoppably, her fingers returned to my eyes, and covered them,
and I began to see the room, and the sunset, and the bookcase again.
That man never reappeared.
Who was he? An angel? I don't believe in dirty angels.
Whatever good and noble that was inside me,
the dulcet voice of the wind, its fingers combing the dishevelled mops of maples,
the first sizzling sound of the sun as it brushed the surface of the evening-stilled river,
the appreciation of beauty, for I did understand beauty,
even my clumsy attempt at chivalry,
all that must have made an effort to speak to me
in the language I would understand.
That effort was singular, in which all the good powers were exhausted.
Or, maybe, I don't deserve a repetition.
That was all the mercy allotted to me.
Mercy is cruel, for it must keep refreshing the knowledge
of that for which mercy is needed.
When the devastating glimpses come, I look out of the window,
into my inner landscape, a long stretch of hills,
enveloped with sun-streaked dust, or pollen,
or the fluff of dandelions that clings to the sunrays,
making them hard, almost palpable,
the reposeful river, and the sun floating in it,
I think about the trumpet that will call out one day
with clear and rich sound piercing those hills,
rolling over that unending expanse of sun-drenched air,
like a sonorous hand stretched towards the drowning sphere,
to lift it at last from the river.
Maybe, the same man, who came here, will sound the trumpet,
if I was mistaken and he was indeed an angel.
As I pace to and fro in my beloved room, smeared with orange light
warming my face, even gleaming inside me,
I do feel gratitude that my perdition is so peaceful.
I am grateful even to her, for clinging to my back, out of my sight,
for gradually turning into a memory, an old and dubious nightmare,
as my life reasserts itself
like silvery patches of clouds becoming visible in the paling sky, at dawn.